Obama planning on cutting SS benefits and raising retirement age?

[brentspeak]

As http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704476104575439792287255372.html">reported by the Wall Street Journal today, and as expected, Obama's debt commission -- a commission created under his own prerogative and staffed entirely according to his own rules -- will be proposing a mix of Social Security benefit cuts and -- possibly (probably) -- the raising of the retirement age. Even though the entire program could be made perpetually solvent simply by http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/16-7">eliminating the payroll-tax cap alone, Obama refuses to flat-out say that he would oppose any raising of the retirement age or any cuts in benefits. Why does he refuse to reassure the American people on this?

Obama is, by http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2Fnews%2Fstories%2F0309%2F19862.html&ei=1GdxTMCHBoW0lQfljsWoDw&usg=AFQjCNFa8Yg70bvvNBAGPJF-HyWBkwrtBw">his own proud admission, a "New Democrat". These "New Democrats" differ from "old Democrats" in that they have aggressively courted funding from Wall Street and multinational corporations. In return for campaign money and the prospect of future lobbying jobs on K-Street, New Democrats will, you know, be more legislatively "friendly" to Corporate America's wishes.

Among other reasons, http://counterpunch.org/nasser08182010.html">corporate oligarchs do not want to see their individual taxes raised to pay for a permanent Social Security fix; better to get America's rapidly-dwindling middle class and lower classes to pay for it themselves.

[Aramchek]

1. what a load of excrement!

[PufPuf23]

55. I feel for you having carry the load each

day.

Well maybe not. Some foul PKD and the USA each time they post.

[Aramchek]

62. PKD would be disgusted by this OPs posts. And if you think he'd be anti-Obama, you're nuts.

[CountAllVotes]

2. this "new Democrat" ...

I am growing sick of quickly. :puke:

:kick:

[tabatha]

3. NO! NO!

Did you not hear what he said this week.

[jonnyblitz]

13. gee, tabatha, apparently not everybody is as gullible as you.

I suspect you believed him when he said the Iraq War is over, too! :crazy:

[tabatha]

17. I see that he has done exactly what he said he would do

wrt Iraq.

I also respect the opinion of Juan Cole.

http://www.juancole.com/2010/08/last-us-combat-units-withdraw-from-iraq.html

"All of the US bases are being turned over to the Iraqi military."

Also, sorry, but I think Obama is an honorable man.

[Dr.Phool]

61. Except for the 50,000+ occupation troops.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DJ13]

5. K&R

If this happens Obama's creation of that commission (after Congress voted it down) will taint not only his own reelection chances, but the entire party for a generation.

[rasputin1952]

40. So, going by that reasoning, are you hoping he

won't run for a second term, or are you hoping he will not be re-elected ion 2012; which means there would be an R in the WH?

Just asking, nothing personal in this, but those are the two options that are out there.

[DJ13]

47. Its just an observation

One that Obama himself can change..... if he wants to.

[rasputin1952]

48. Thanks...

There are a few people that actually might want PO to lose or back out for a second term.

We are close to a Mid-term, everyone is on edge, I think D's are going to gain seats in both houses...that should change the dynamics, but elected D's have to get it together if really expect change.

[PufPuf23]

56. I hope Obama has the decency to pull an LBJ.

I was a big supporter, gave money, and cried as an old man over the election.

I knew something was drastically wrong when Obama started his appointments.

[impik]

72. Don't worry, you'll get your wish. He will go home in two years.

Enjoy Palin.


Next time, you may want to actually LISTEN to the candidate.

[ThomCat]

6. From the moment he formed this commission, we have all been warned.

We know what is coming.

People had better take sides on this and fight to protect Social Security! He isn't even making it a secret that he is maneuvering for a way to give Wall Street what they want. :(

[DJ13]

8. he is maneuvering for a way to give Wall Street what they want

But he warned us about a corporate takeover of our government and how he wants to stand against it........



:sarcasm:

[KingFlorez]

7. No, but you wish he would

It's not hard to see what your number is.

[ThomCat]

9. Do you think someone here WANTS

to see Social Security's age raised and benefits cut? :wtf:

[Mimosa]

49. ... to see Social Security's age raised and benefits cut?

Social Security needs to be raised, not cut.

Thomcat, I want everybody who supports making people poorer for whatever reasons to speak up instead of sneak up, as they do now. ;)

[denimgirly]

10. $1.7 Trillion Surplus in SS -- but yet we are proposing cuts?!? Why? Because New Democrats/Repubs

want to rob it and pocket it for the rich few.

We need a new party that is for the people

[joeglow3]

64. Paper surplus

Unfortunately, our government has pissed the financial/market value of that surplus. We cannot afford to look this from a bookkeeping standpoint and need to realize the sunk cost we have already incurred.

[Milo_Bloom]

11. Isn't it wise for them to say they CONSIDERED it?

As long as in the end, they go with another option.

My fear is that given this administrations poor track record is that they will embrace the solution that best benefits the corporations, such as they did with the credit card reforms, health care reform, banking reform, etc..

[ClarkUSA]

12. WSJ and unnamed Politico "sources" again? Obama publicly rejected DLC membership in 2003.

A June 26, 2003 Black Commentator cover story noted that the DLC included Barack Obama in their “New Democrat” directory “without my knowledge. . . . Because I agree that such a directory implies membership, I will be calling the DLC to have my name removed, and appreciate your having brought this fact to my attention.”

http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/48_cover.html

Your quoting the uber-conservative WSJ in your neverending rumormongering efforts to find wrong in President Obama is pathetic.

[brentspeak]

21. DLC CEO: "Obama calls himself a New Democrat, and shows what it means"

http://www.slate.com/id/2213474

By Bruce Reed
Posted Wednesday, March 11, 2009, at 3:06 PM ET

For conservatives still trying to fit Barack Obama into their old tax-and-spend-liberal box, Tuesday was a very bad day. In the morning, the president gave a http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/10/AR2009031000146.html?hpid=topnews">tough-minded education reform speech demanding more accountability from schools, teachers, students, and parents. The same afternoon, he brought members of the http://www.house.gov/tauscher/ndc/">House New Democrat Coalition to the White House and told them, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19862.html">"I am a New Democrat." According to Politico, Obama went on to describe himself as a fiscally responsible, pro-growth Democrat who supports free and fair trade and opposes protectionism.

snip

Full disclosure: I've always loved the term New Democrat and in the early '90s launched a magazine by that name for the Democratic Leadership Council, the organization I now head. The label and the philosophy behind it were an attempt to think anew and move past the ideological logjams of that era.

Bruce Reed, who was President Clinton's domestic policy adviser, is CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council and co-author with Rahm Emanuel of The Plan: Big Ideas for Change in America. E-mail him at [e-mail]. Read his disclosure here.

[ClarkUSA]

23. The "DLC CEO" is using the same unnamed Politico "sources" quote you are. How pathetic.

Too bad neither of you can quote on-the-record facts from Barack Obama himself rejecting the DLC like I did.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ClarkUSA]

26. Prove it. Or is Politico's word all you've got?

BTW, "throwing poo from your cage" would accurately describe your constant efforts to tear down President Obama down ever since 2008.


Pathetic.

[brentspeak]

29. Is Rollcall.com a "rightwing source"?

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_109/news/33543-1.html

Obama has already notched sit-downs with the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — sessions that participants hailed as opportunities to outline their priorities face-to-face with the commander in chief and receive some commitments in return. During the CHC meeting, for example, Obama promised to hold an immigration forum, while with the New Democrats, he proclaimed, “I am a New Democrat.”

You quoted the Black Commentator site. Here's what Black Agenda site says about this:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/president-obama-declares-his-dlc-allegiance-says-i-am-new-democrat

President Obama Declares His DLC Allegiance: Says "I Am A New Democrat

snip

As potent as the DLC-New Democrat brand is, it is also poisonous. As a candidate for the Democratic nomination to the US Senate in 2003, Obama urgently needed to lock down the progressive, black and antiwar vote in his home state of Illinois, and was compelled to renounce the Democratic Leadership Council. That was then. This is now. Perhaps the president feels himself untouchable and unaccountable now that he is safely in the White Hose. Maybe he was just relaxed. Whatever the case, the truth of where his political allegiance lies is no longer a matter of conjecture.

The Democratic Leadership Council has always been “Republicans-lite,” a pack of corporate funded Trojan Horses inside the Democratic Party responsible to their funders, and not to the Democratic Party's base. Now President Obama has assumed his place, as the leader of that pack.

So Politico's reporters simply fabricated what Obama said, and everyone from the DLC CEO to the managing editor of the Black Agenda Report website have merely been repeating this fabrication ever since? And your proof that what Politico reported is fake is based on...what?

You're melting.

[ClarkUSA]

31. No reliably-sourced, verifiable facts there, either.

As for the predictably Obama-bashing op-ed from Black Agenda Report, they seem to be buying into Politico's unnamed "WH sources" story, too. And they, like you, have never printed a good word about President Obama.

Pathetic.

[nightrain]

38. maybe c-span is an unreliable source too?

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/284530-4



"AND CONGRESSMAN JOE CROWLEY FROM QUEENS N.Y.. WE'RE VERY GRATEFUL FOR THIS INFORMATION TODAY, AT AND THAT THE PRESIDENT SAID HE WAS A NEW DEMOCRAT. HE... "


denial is deeply-entrenched.

[nightrain]

28. IMO the sense of betrayal goes so deep and is so difficult for some to even own in themselves,

that the desperation to make it otherwise leads to strange denial of "facts", as well as this fascination and focus on Obama's personal life. It comes in the form of mind-reading and thought and feeling-placing in him (projecting one's own feelings into another).

They will probably be some of the very last to come out of denial, if it ever occurs. The denial is just too damn painful to acknowledge. It's like codependency. Terribly sad.

[ClarkUSA]

33. The only denial I see at DU is a refusal to acknowledge Pres. Obama's historic accomplishments. n/t

[nightrain]

34. yeah, it's painful to get to the place to see denial in oneself... I didnt

want to hear it, see it, believe it, for several months myself. But, the turning point for sure was the lack of tranparency around meeting secretly with the health insurance corporations and big Pharma last year. Dreadful to acknowledge how much of a betrayal that was, but ultimately it was freeing from the fog of illusion. Good luck with yourself.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

70. "There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail”

there was even less attention in 2003. it sure was easy to say whatever when his constituency agreed with him.

[Catherina]

30. No one needs politico to recognize that distinctive quack n/t

[ClarkUSA]

32. Sure, let's all ignore the fact that Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce hate Obama's guts. n/t

[SidDithers]

39. +1...nt

Sid

[JNelson6563]

41. Any port in a storm friend.

No matter the source, if you include cool hotlinks in your opinion piece then it's unassailable! The sooner you admit Obama is JUST LIKE Bush, the sooner these poor DUers can quit having to put this kind of shit together! Got that ClarkUSA???

;-)

Julie

[Lasher]

14. He formed the Catfood Commission, that was betrayal enough.

Regardless of where it goes from here. All he had to do was nothing and Social Security would have been fine. But no, he's going to at least raise the taxable earnings cap.

That's wrong. By doing that, they ensure that the $2.3 trillion in trust fund treasury bonds, built up for 40 years by collection of regressive payroll tax dollars, will never be redeemed - as planned for 4 decades - with progressive income tax dollars. And they're giving the general fund (progressive income tax money) a pass by collection of even more payroll tax dollars.

Don't you people get it? That's how they steal the trust fund - by giving tax cuts to the richest 10% (GWB, GHWB, & Saint Ronnie), running the country on borrowed payroll taxes that the wealthy don't pay, and then reneging on the treasury bonds by just never paying them back.

That's just what they're going to do. And they're going to raise the cap, not eliminate it or make unearned income subject to payroll taxes - which will not only ensure the wealthy elite will never have to pay the trust fund for their 40 year tax holiday they got at the expense of everyone else, but will also guarantee that their gravy train keeps on rolling with the continued support of the general fund with even more payroll taxes it will never repay.

[IndianaGreen]

15. And he appointed well-know Social Security enemies as co-chairs

Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson would turn our seniors into soylent green if they could

Then we have Grover Norquist testifying to the Cat Food Commission, and former DLC honcho Bruce Reed become the commission's executive officer.

The handful of moderates on the commission are more than out-voted by the rightwingers sporting Ds and Rs after their names.

[Lasher]

16. All that is true, but there's nobody in Congress saying the trust fund bonds have to be redeemed.

Not even Bernie Sanders. There's not even one Senator who would filibuster raising the earnings cap so that the trust fund bonds would be redeemed by the general fund, as we'd planned for four decades while we paid extra payroll taxes for that specific purpose. They're all a bunch of neoliberals now and there's nobody watching out for working people anymore.

[IndianaGreen]

18. It wouldn't happen if we had a working class party to fight for us

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

Book of Matthew, Chapter 6, verse 24.

You can't have a political party that serves the corporations and the workers. You can serve one or the other, but not both!

[johnaries]

19. Ahem, from teh WSJ article you linked to:

"People would rather pay more or have revenue raised than cut the benefits," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.), a commission member. She said she was fairly confident a proposal that included benefit cuts would not garner the needed 14 votes.

Then, even IF (and it's a HUGE if) benefit cuts make it as a proposal, Congress has to approve it.

Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

[Safetykitten]

20. The more he says he will fight cuts, the more I worry. HCR you know...

[IndianaGreen]

22. There is a well defined track record of saying one thing and doing another

HCR fiasco and the fate of the public option was an epiphany!

[NorthCarolina]

46. He didn't say he would fight "cuts". He said he would oppose "privatization".

Cuts in the form of lowering/eliminating COLA and raising the retirement age are likely what he has had planned all along.

[Ikonoklast]

74. Concern noted.

Lots of things Democrats do 'concern' you.

And everything Obama does.

[nightrain]

25. knr. New Dems and Blue Dogs have brought us to the widening divide between the haves

and the have nots, IMO. The New Dems and Blue Dogs have neglected traditional positions and polcies, alliances, approaches, and ethics of "old Dems". We are suffering as a result.

Those New Dems and Blue Dogs deserve to lose in November and 2012 so that we can bring in more progressive Democrats and get this country moving in a healthier direction.

It's not solely the Republicans' fault/responsibility. Dems bear much of the responsibility for the current distress also. Witness Obama's catfood commission and the despicable "changes" they are considering. The health insurance "reform" is in accordance with New Dem philosophy and values, sadly. Wake up, question authority.

[thelordofhell]

27. Obama planning on cutting SS benefits and raising retirement age?

No.


:eyes: :crazy: :tinfoilhat:

[monmouth]

35. Has "Ignored" said something important?....n/t

[Ikonoklast]

63. Yes, very.

"Argle Bargle!"

You know the usual hate hate hate, cite right-wing sources, attempt to be divisive, the regular stuff.

[monmouth]

65. Ah, I think I know of whom you speak. I love "Ignore."....n/t

[rufus dog]

36. If you replace "reported by the WSJ"

With "reported by Sean Hannity at Fox" would you have a different thought on the validity?

[frazzled]

37. He's planning to kill your grandma, too!

Honest. I read it on FireHydrantDogLake.

[suzie]

59. +1,000,000

[Kahuna]

67. ...

:rofl:

[JNelson6563]

42. It's crap like this that makes me bitterly regret

the DU admins have chosen to dissemble rather than to choose a firm path for DU.

How sad.

Julie

[BlueIdaho]

45. No kidding.

Doubly sad.

[DailyGrind51]

43. Where are seniors going to find jobs, when 40 year-olds can't find them?

[Mimosa]

50. ^Amen DailyGrind ^ n/t

[rasputin1952]

44. I think this is a red herring...

and will be used to bash PO for quite some time. I will wait to see what comes out of the Committee before making any judgments. Some here seem to think the president will hoist himself up on the cross and nail himself to it, I don't think this is going to happen. Taking the cap off of FICA/Medicare would help immensely, by far though the single thing that could be done to keep SS/Medicare afloat would be to stop taking "excess" cash out to pay down the debt and other things. For years, money has been siphoned away from the fund for all kinds of things, it was one of the ways the R's thought they could kill it off, by spending whatever was left after the payouts were made.

We shall see what the commission comes up with, although I don't think any R's should have been involved. The vast majority of R's in congress are little more than feces throwing monkey's, and the few decent one's left have been ostracized by by their centrist points of view.

[DemocraticPilgrim]

51. They are only suggestions we can say to congress no reelection if it raises.

[Whisp]

52. poop load

[marlakay]

53. I am 54 and out of work

and not finding any. I live off my husband retirement, he is older than me and retired early, he is in his early 60's. I heard they won't change the retirement age for people like my husband. They are thinking of making it happen for all of those under 55 next January. Next january I will be 54 1/2. So now instead of waiting until 62 for something I will have to wait longer. And I can't get a job. I feel useless.

I really want to support Obama but everytime he caves more and more to the corporate world and the republicans I like him less and less. I know he is better than voting for a republican who would change social security to private if they could but geez...

He needs to take the cap away. Rich people are just getting more and more greedy and our system that takes a ton of money to get elected is causing no leaders for the people.

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Skittles]

57. question

what exactly do you think is the purpose of that commission?

[Dr.Phool]

58. Stealing my food, and giving it to grandma!

[Doctor_J]

60. We need to stop allowing posts from Rupert Journal, Moonie Times,

Politico, and all of the other right-wing rags. Christ. Someone posted an article from newsbusters last week.

If you're addicted to that shit, that's your problem. If you want to post it, go to freeperville.

[Kahuna]

66. If you believe this, I know a nice bridge in NY that's for sale...

:rofl:

[Ikonoklast]

68. The Democrats will sell us all out on S.S.

And lose the House, Senate, and Executive offices for a generation.

Yeah, that's going to happen.

[katandmoon]

69. Obama's naming of anti-SSers Erskine Bowles/Alan Simpson as chairmen of CF Comm. says it all.

[impik]

71. He will also kill the second child of every family

[great white snark]

75. And he wants the head of John the Boehner on a platter.

[AtomicKitten]

73. Terrorist fist jab?

:thumbsdown: